HD 80606b : from 800 to 1,500 Kelvin in six hours

[james_davis_nicoll]

"This is the first time that we've detected weather changes in real time on a planet outside our solar system."

Comments

[sethb.livejournal.com]

Now that's what I call Global Warming.

[anzhalyumitethe.livejournal.com]

nonono. That's Cooking with Gas!

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Okay . . . so it goes from a bit above the melting point of lead to just about the boiling point of lead . . . that's pretty darned hot, from where I'm sitting as a liquid dihytrogen monoxide-based critter . . .

[galbinus-caeli.livejournal.com]

So the local residents are running a lead based liquid through their veins?

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Seems like that would be a necessity, wouldn't it?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I strongly doubt it. Boiling things in your veins is usually a bad idea.

[galbinus-caeli.livejournal.com]

I thought it said "almost boiling". And many earth creatures are able to keep their internal temperatures slightly below ambient. They could also be nocturnal.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Okay, yeah -- I thought the temperature was closer than that, because I saw the boiling point of lead in Centigrade and thought it was Kelvin.

Oops.

[quicktongue.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this.

[mrteufel.livejournal.com]

Icon <3 !

[brooksmoses]

I'm a little baffled by the phrase, "air near the planet's gaseous surface," myself.

[argonel.livejournal.com]

I'm slighly amused by the 190 year delay being considered real-time. But then if you are observing it at the smae spped that it happens I guess it is essentially 'live' observation.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

No, it IS instantaneous. It's just that it takes 190 years for the instant to get to us.

Remember, "now" travels at the speed of light. There is no universal "now" -- every instant propogates outward from every place in the universe at c. Electromagnetic radiation gets from point A to point B instantaneously -- from ITS point of view. It just takes time for that instant to get from one place to another.

[argonel.livejournal.com]

True, I was just pointing out that the 'now' of the observation is severely decoupled from the 'now' of the event happening. It mostly points out that english does not do well when discussing things that happen over distances that exceed 1 million miles (or kilometers if you prefer metric units).

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

It's not really English's fault.

It's just that our brains are wired for where we live.

If you get really big, really small, really hot, really cold, or really fast, the universe just doesn't look a heck of a lot like what it looks like around our temperature, size, and speed.

[thesaucernews.livejournal.com]

"You're looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now, is happening now."
"What happened to then?"
"We passed it."
"When?"
"Just now. We're at now, now."
"Go back to 'then.'"
"When?"
"Now."
"Now?"
"Now."
"I can't."
"Why?"
"We missed it."
"When?"
"...just now."
"When will then be now?"
"Soon."

[selidor]

So when do we get the stories featuring these kinds of exciting exoplanets? I mean, we've had fun and interesting ones since 1995, and if 335 planets (as of 2009-1-28) aren't enough to start writing about...

And yet, every fictional spacecraft seems to visit a terrestrial planet or Jovian-orbit gas giant, w/w-out rings as takes your fancy.

Come to think of it, where are the speculations about travelling to & exploring super-Earths or micro-Neptunes?

If I've missed some being published, pointers to such stories would be gratefully welcomed...

[mrteufel.livejournal.com]

This x1000

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

Well, some of them are fairly old, but have you read any of Hal Clement's work?

--Dave

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

And some of the bit of Niven's Known Space; and James White's Hospital Station.

The real reason is people figure other people will go for planets where living will be more, or less, like living at home.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Is this some strange new definition of real time with which I was previously unaware? Or have we discovered FtL observation?

[(Anonymous)]

This will be the temperature, mostly, at one optical depth into the atmosphere. Given that this is called a gas giant in the release, I assume it has a thick atmosphere, which means that this will be very, very far from the surface. Equivalent measurements for Earth from afar could give you stratospheric temperatures (which can vary wildly), depending on the wavelength used.

There is a strange belief evident in many of these press releases that the atmosphere is a thin isothermal film. Even here in Toronto in winter it is generally warmer than that would imply (255 absolute).


William Hyde